


open one's hands and give

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 20:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16960662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: I just have to admit it: I have a thing for hand!porn | Written for Challenge 38 at then_theres_us on LJ many moons ago.





	open one's hands and give

After standing on Satellite One and watching bits of Earth spin past the windows—

After running into a werewolf in a Scottish manor house—

After parallel worlds and facing down Satan on an asteroid that orbited a black hole—

Lying on the roof of an old farmhouse to stare up at the stars was downright normal. And it was more comfortable than most of the places they’d been recently. They’d made a regular nest out of pillows and an old down comforter he’d found in a spare chest. 

One of the nice things about the TARDIS was that you never had to worry about mothballs.

She didn’t know why he’d taken her here, to the middle of America’s farmland and a huge, hundred-and-fifty-year-old house that was empty for the holiday weekend. Lately she’d noticed a tension growing around him, like the steady build-up of electricity before a storm. She’d catch him looking at her with an unusual mixture of sadness, concern, and longing—but when she reached out for his arm he would abruptly turn and hurry off to some other room, muttering about calibrations and diagnostics and how there was _never enough time_. 

Rose was beginning to worry. She could feel a small cold lump settling into her stomach, as if she’d swallowed a snowball. All she wanted was to make that unease dissipate so she could smile at him like she used to and feel that familiar warm rush when he smiled in return. 

She glanced over at him. The moon was only half full, and though the stars were bright and clear this far away from city lights and smoke, there was hardly enough light to make out his profile in the inky blackness. He was staring up at the sky; she could make out that much. She swallowed nervously, a dozen questions on her tongue that faded away stillborn when he suddenly reached over and took her hand. His thumb brushed down the back of hers, moving in a small circle when it reached her wrist. 

And that was all it took to throw her a year into the past.

\---

They were lying on a starlit beach in California, sprawled haphazardly after their run. Jack had tossed his hat into the tide with a laugh, the legs of his khakis soaked with seawater as he stretched out on her left. She smoothed down her pink skirt before falling back against the still-warm sand, pushing the damp hair from her eyes. And the Doctor was to her right, barely a foot away, the heat of his leather jacket palpable in the sudden evening chill.

More than a hundred yards away there was a bonfire. A group of teenagers were laughing around it, one strumming a guitar, another passing out glass bottles of beer from the cooler. But down here, on _their_ part of the beach, the night felt wilder. More primal. There were creatures out there beneath the waves; danger in the darkness of the cliffs. Those kids celebrating around their fire had no idea.

Jack said something about the American dream, throwing a hand up and gesturing at the bonfire. He sounded as exhilarated and relieved as Rose felt, that familiar tremble to his voice that she always had after a close call. She didn’t say anything, and neither did the Doctor, and Jack fell into comfortable silence, knowing that nothing _needed_ to be said. This felt easy and right: just the three of them on the edge of the water, the gentle hissing and rumbling of the ocean soothing them into a drowsy lull. 

And then there was a terrific **BANG!** and the sky lit up in reds and blues and greens, and Rose had to shield her eyes from the dazzling barrage. 

“I’ll give ‘em this,” the Doctor said with a begrudging sort of admiration. “Americans sure do know how to celebrate. It’s only right that their day of independence be commemorated with explosions and loud noises and garish colors.”

“How very _them_ , yeah?” Jack grinned. 

The fireworks lasted for almost an hour. When they were over the bonfire was put out and the oblivious teenagers dispersed, leaving the beach empty and silent. In the sudden absence of noise and color, as the world became colder and blacker, Rose shivered. 

“Shall we head back?” the Doctor asked quietly, face turned to meet her eye. She shook her head quickly, flashing a smile unsteady with chill. 

“Here.” He reached for her hand, rubbing it between his. 

She loved his hands. She loved all of him, but something about his hands… They were half again her size, a bit callused in spots, and there was a rough scar down the side of his pinky that she’d always wondered about. Her hands slid into his as if tailor-made—sometimes it was a bit frightening. She’d broken the middle finger of her right hand years ago during gymnastics, and it had healed slightly crooked. It wasn’t very noticeable, and she hardly even thought about it—until he’d grabbed her hand and there had been the slightest of indents on _his_ finger that aligned perfectly with hers. 

Rose had never believed in destiny until that night in the basement.

As they lay there in the cooling darkness, his fingers sliding against hers, it felt as though every one of her nerves stood at attention. His fingertips rubbed against her knuckles, sliding down to massage her wrist. There was an awful lot of strength in his hands, but she could never imagine them doing anything brutish. Nine hundred years worth of intelligence and experience lay in those hands, no matter how young or old they looked, and she could feel the double heartbeat pounding beneath his skin. They were like the hands of a pianist: capable of crafting something beautiful and timeless. An artist’s hands. And as he caressed her palm and brushed his thumb along the side of hers, she could _feel_ the power and knowledge that lay in those fingers. 

Her free hand dug into the cold sand at her side, clenching unnoticed. She was having trouble catching her breath, as if her lungs had been crushed beneath the pounding of her heart. Adrenaline and a heady cocktail of emotions and hormones were screaming in her veins, and as every muscle tightened in her body she realized she couldn’t stay without exploding.

She pulled her hand away so sharply it startled him and scrambled to her feet, unsteady and tilting as she struggled to find her strength. “Let’s go back,” she managed to say hoarsely, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed. 

Jack sat up hastily, eyes dark with concern. “Something wrong, Rose?”

“No, no,” she mumbled, her hands tightening at her sides. “I just think I need some sleep in a proper bed.”

The Doctor straightened, brushing the sand from his black slacks, his eyes never leaving her face. His face was perfectly neutral, but there was something in his eyes that suggested he understood why she was suddenly so nonplussed. He simply nodded and rummaged in his pocket for his TARDIS key, turning on his boot heel to head home.

\---

“That night on the beach,” Rose said suddenly, voice rough and stumbling. “In California. With Jack.”

“I remember it,” he replied.

“Do you know why I pulled away?”

He said nothing, his thumb frozen and still against hers. 

“Because I knew that you couldn’t…” She stopped herself, breath hitching painfully in her chest. Her hand slid from his and she tightened her fingers around the comforter they lay on. “I know how hard it is for you. The fact that I’m just a human. It’s impossible.”

“Only a few things are truly impossible,” he said quietly.

She was silent for a very long time. “That night, it was like we were the only two people alive,” she said finally. “I forgot Jack was there, I even forgot _where_ we were. It was like I was the only woman in the universe, and you had my hand in yours and… every brush of your fingers felt incredible. It was one of the sexiest moments of my life and I wanted to kiss you—” She stopped herself again. “But then I remembered who you were and who I am and that it was never gonna work.”

He moved beside her, pushing himself up to look down at her in the starlight. A breeze rushed between them, playing with the lapels of his open collar, pulling at her hair. 

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things,” he said finally, voice calm and even and a touch detached. “The future and the past. The consequences of actions. Logistics and inescapable truths and limits and coordinates, and what I should and should not do.” He stretched out his hand, brushing wisps of hair from her face. “And do you know what I’ve decided?”

“What?”

“That sometimes I need to stop thinking.” His hand curved to cup her cheek as he kissed her, gentle and questing until she responded without a question as to how she felt about it. 

His hands now were a magician’s hands, she decided, as he pressed against her. This pair might be slimmer than the last, but they somehow felt exactly the same. Perfect. They were hot and certain as they slipped beneath her shirt and brushed against the edges of her bra. As she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt he slid further down, pushing away the fabric until—

She gasped against his mouth, the soft noise somehow audible over the thundering of heartbeats, and his lips curved into a smile. Somehow she let go of him long enough for the shirt to be pulled up over her head. The breeze was sharp against her bare skin, but then his mouth was at her collarbone, a hand running down almost agonizingly slowly along her curves, and the sheer heat of it all overwhelmed any chill the night could produce. 

His hands weren’t the only pieces tailor made for her, she was delighted to discover as his hips moved against hers. An indie song she’d heard a dozen people cover was suddenly running through her head—something about corresponding puzzle pieces—and the incongruity of it almost made her laugh. 

But then he was shifting and sliding and she tightened her legs around him, rocking with him as he slipped inside and gasped for breath. Her hand tensed around his shoulder, flexing with each thrust. This felt like nothing she had experienced before. The sensations of soft skin against skin were more vivid, more present—

The entire world melted away into nothingness. The Doctor had always had this affect on her to some extent; the ability to make her feel singular and important, as if they moved through the universe in their own tiny bubble of sideways smiles and clasped hands. 

This, though, this was that to a startling degree. There was no farm, no fields, no chirping crickets or rustling grasses. They weren’t lying on a roof because there was no house, no earth, no planet. There was nothing but starlight and the tangible blackness of space and him. His lips on her neck and his breath in her ear and his hips colliding with hers and his hands—

She cried out with the rush, opening her eyes to stare straight into his, and the welter of emotions and thoughts and experiences swirling in them stole the breath she had just caught. Everything he was, held in those brown eyes that were far too old to belong to such a young face. The force of it all swept over her and made her feel weak—but he was holding her closer, his arms tight around her, his head against her shoulder, and the feeling left her just as quickly as it had come. 

Rose slid her fingers into the hair that lay damply against his neck, her other hand slipping down his back, moving against the sweat-slicked skin in those small circles that were so familiar. His hold didn’t lessen, and she realized suddenly that she was comforting him. 

How had that happened? How had he become the frightened one in need of assurance? 

“I love you,” she said to the darkness. “No matter what, remember that.”

“I always will,” he said. He shifted slightly, her curves aligning with his angles perfectly once more.

And there are some moments when words are pale imitations of what can never truly be said.


End file.
